I chose my game and posted a review for it here rather than at Gameroni because I consider it an indie title and plan to use it in this tournament. The review is here. Now I've signed up and shown up in the same thread. I hope that makes up for me flaking on the Alpha Tournament, if only a little.

"Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." - John F. Kennedy on reality

"What if everything you see is more than what you see--the person next to you is a warrior and the space that appears empty is a secret door to another world? What if something appears that shouldn't? You either dismiss it, or you accept that there is much more to the world than you think. Perhaps it really is a doorway, and if you choose to go inside, you'll find many unexpected things." - Shigeru Miyamoto on secret doors to another world

I'm not sure how others feel, or whether or not Torchlight should be considered indie, but in my opinion it's the development team that should be considered, not who published the game. Big publishers sometimes publish indie games, too.

"Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." - John F. Kennedy on reality

"What if everything you see is more than what you see--the person next to you is a warrior and the space that appears empty is a secret door to another world? What if something appears that shouldn't? You either dismiss it, or you accept that there is much more to the world than you think. Perhaps it really is a doorway, and if you choose to go inside, you'll find many unexpected things." - Shigeru Miyamoto on secret doors to another world

If indie-ness were based on development team size, we'd need yet another label to cover what we call "indie" today. A quick search shows that the company that made Torchlight was founded by the lead designer of Diablo 1 and 2. Emphasis on "company".

Not indie.

EDIT: By the way, if we try to define "indie", we will fail, so let's not even try. But I'm more than happy to let people know whether or not their game counts in my book. (since the other judges probably have different feelings)

Yeah, I didn't say anything about team size, just who actually made the game. Not every team we've never heard of is indie. Torchlight's team was well known as ex-members of Blizzard, but I wasn't down with disqualifying the game on the basis of Encore being the publisher they finally found (and Encore wasn't with it at the start anyway, as I recall). By the way, though, are you saying that if a skilled developer from a famous development team starts up a team of a few people and makes a game, then it can't be indie? Because to me, that's almost like saying that anyone with experience or talent can't be indie! ;-)

"Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought." - John F. Kennedy on reality

"What if everything you see is more than what you see--the person next to you is a warrior and the space that appears empty is a secret door to another world? What if something appears that shouldn't? You either dismiss it, or you accept that there is much more to the world than you think. Perhaps it really is a doorway, and if you choose to go inside, you'll find many unexpected things." - Shigeru Miyamoto on secret doors to another world

Experienced people generally don't call their games indie, because they have confidence in their work and aren't trying to appeal to the indie crowd. An exception would be that one Xbox Indie game made by that semi-known dude, but he was basically begged by Microsoft to put his thing on XBLI instead of XBLA. Oh yeah, and Arika released a game on XBLI, which is totally wrong and does not count as indie even though it's on the indie service.

I consider Indie games to be developed and published by the same team without outside help. While companies could create Indie games that is not the norm. Big bonus points for a game that was developed and published by the same group of people. Games like Braid, Aquaria and Armadillo Run.